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Category Archives: Management and Information

On 25 June, Andrei Popa, SPE Distinguished Lecturer, will speak on “Understanding the Potential of Case-Based Reasoning in the Oil Industry.” Case-based reasoning (CBR) is another soft computing technology developed to deal with uncertainty, approximate reasoning and exploit knowledge domain. Case-based reasoning, also known as computer reasoning by analogy, is a simple and practical technique that solves new problems by comparing them to ones that have already been solved in the past, thus saving time and money. Users can choose between a morning and an evening session.

Learn about “Digital Manufacturing and Its Relation to Drilling Systems Automation” on 3 June with Clay Flannigan. Digital Manufacturing (“Digital Thread”) encompasses the idea of high-levels of connectivity, data aggregation, and digital models to drive efficiency, safety, and growth in distributed systems. More concretely, there is a trend in manufacturing operations towards having a common data model that guides the creation of products from design engineering, through manufacturing all the way to maintenance, support, and end-of-life reclamation. This web event will provide an overview of current activities in other industries and their relation to drilling system automation.

Approved by the SPE Board of Directors in March, this report documents the consensus from the SPE Summit held in March 2014. Topics covered in the technical report include reservoir properties, inflow modeling, outflow modeling, total volume, special cases, and reporting. Deterministic methods are proposed because of the wording of regulations and requirements for detailed well design and response planning, but parametric sensitivity analysis is recommended. All reservoir properties should be best-estimate success-case values based on sound geology, geophysics, and engineering judgment. Future improvements could include flow correlations for high rates in large-diameter pipes, sonic velocity effects, and probabilistic methods. For full details, read SPE-174705-TR.

Applications are open for SPE Faculty Enhancement Travel Grants. If you are a university faculty member looking for financial support to attend SPE conferences, workshops, and forums apply online today.

It is my plan to keep you posted on all current developments and initiatives regarding M&I within SPE, but this time, I would like to comment on Management & Information and its associated disciplines.

First, a clarification for those not versed on the composition of the SPE Board of Directors. The SPE board has 6 technical directors, an Academia director, 2 at-large directors, and 18 regional directors representing global geographical regions with SPE local sections. The 6 technical directors lead the 6 main technical discipline areas in which SPE is involved, namely: (1) Drilling and Completions, (2) Production and Operations, (3) Health, Safety, Security, Environment and Social Responsibility, (4) Projects, Facilities and Construction, (5) Reservoir Description and Dynamics, and (6) Management and Information (M&I).

I am sure that most of our members do not have any doubts regarding the disciplines represented in five of the six areas above mentioned. No doubts about the meaning of Drilling & Completion or Production & Operations for example. However, regarding M&I, I was surprised to notice, since my nomination last year, how little our members know about it.

Since last year, when I was elected to the board, several times in informal conversation with members, colleagues from industry and even SPE staff, I was asked about the meaning of M&I. Also, I had several colleagues that assumed that M&I was an area of SPE dealing with Information Technology (IT) only.

Far from that—SPE M&I covers a range of subjects that are fundamental to our daily professional life, independently of one’s technical background in the oil industry. From Risk Management and Decision Making to Strategic Planning, from Asset and Portfolio Management to Energy Economics, from Information Management to Research & Development, M&I covers a variety of disciplines that are important and present in all areas of our industry. One area that I am particularly fond of is Professionalism, Training and Education. This important topic looks into aspects of Ethics, Personnel Competence, Professional Registration / Certification and University Curricula.

So, as you can see, our M&I technical area covers a variety of subjects that permeates through the entire industry and is relevant to most professionals. When you join SPE or when you update your profile in the SPE membership area you are required to choose a Primary Discipline. As an option, you may also choose a Secondary Discipline. I always tell my colleagues that if M&I is not your primary discipline, at least it should be your secondary since it covers an array of topics that are important to all others disciplines.

Now that you have a good idea about M&I, I invite you to get more involved. Join our M&I technical discussion at SPE Connect. Join or get more involved with our technical sections. Submit a paper to our journal. Your participation is important and always welcomed.

I will “talk” to you again next month. Meanwhile feel free to write me anytime at jc-cunha@spemail.org.

In an effort to assist authors submit their best papers to conferences and journals, SPE is offering a web event hosted by SPE member Byron Haynes, Jr. P.E. on “How to Write a Good Technical Paper.” In this presentation, Haynes will cover both basics and some more advanced methods for authors. Post presentation, he will field questions from participants.

As your new Management & Information (M&I) Technical Director, I would like to use my first words in these notes to thank you for your service and constant support of SPE. It is an honor to serve on the SPE Board of Directors (BOD) and I plan, during the next 3 years of my mandate, to use this space as a channel of communication about all initiatives in our M&I area.

I would like to thank and commend my predecessor, Cindy Reece, for the fantastic work and leadership she showed during the last 3 years as a member of the Board. Cindy was an indefatigable thinker and hard worker advancing several M&I issues. She was a driving force in the initiative to understand the challenges to attract, develop, and retain PE faculty. Within this area, she also led the effort to organize in 2013 the Forum on Education with the theme “2020 Foresight – Ensuring Educational Excellence for Upstream Engineering Resources.” Cindy continues serving SPE and we are currently working together to organize a new forum in 2016 (more information later).

We have a busy, and hopefully very productive, year ahead of us. Besides the efforts towards the 2016 Education Forum, we will be working on plans for a few other 2016 proposed fora as well as several 2015/2016 SPE events covering aspects of the M&I discipline. Also, we will be working closely with the newly elected leadership of the Digital Energy (DE) and Petroleum Data-Driven Analytics (PD2A) technical sections. Additionally, we are fostering an initiative to publish a technical report for Decision Quality in Multi-Company Upstream Projects.

In the upcoming months, I plan to update you on all the above mentioned initiatives. We will also have guest writers commenting on important topics related to M&I. Thank you again for being part of SPE. I welcome your comments, feedback, and assistance to help improve our M&I area. Please feel free to contact me at jc-cunha@spemail.org.

The global shale revolution is just beginning. Although technical advancements are largely responsible for unlocking the potential of shale gas, the industry’s coordination with a broad set of stakeholders (governments, regulators, academia, the public) argu­ably have equal, and perhaps more, influence on the implemen­tation of new shale developments.

Offshore use of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is in its infancy, but, with the adoption of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to decarbonize fossil-fueled power generation, there is a time-critical opportunity to add value to the CCS chain by adopting and maturing offshore CO2 EOR. The talk will include policy background, plans by utility companies, sources and sinks for CO2, the EOR opportunity, infrastructure requirements, logistics, and engineering challenges.